Way OT : Utility Bills

beancounter

We have two electricity meters - day and night. The night tarrif is lower than the day tarrif. For four years the utility company has been charging day usage at the night tarrif, and vice versa.

They've finally realised their mistake and issued an amended bill going back 4 years.

I've no great issue with paying the bill but I just wondered if there was any limit on how far back they can go, given it's their mistake.?

If anyone has any similar experience or knowledge of this sort of area, your input would be gratefully received.

bc

cee

Hey...

personally....I would dispute it as their mistake and raise a complaint with ofgem...

you may be able to have the difference reduced or written off completely.....

its a tricky one...statute of limitations will not have kicked in yet...for a start...its an ongoing account...and it hasn't been five years anyway.....

you have probably underpaid (it doesn't sound like you dispute that....), but clearly any repayment should be at terms which are amenable to you....it was after all their mistake...

phone ofgem.

Crapaud

cee wrote:

...statute of limitations ...

Sounds suspiciously American. Do we have such a thing here?

Pross

Crapaud wrote:

cee wrote:

...statute of limitations ...Sounds suspiciously American. Do we have such a thing here?

We have the Limitation Act I believe.

spen666

cee wrote:

Hey...

personally....I would dispute it as their mistake and raise a complaint with ofgem...

you may be able to have the difference reduced or written off completely.....

its a tricky one...statute of limitations will not have kicked in yet...for a start...its an ongoing account...and it hasn't been five years anyway.....
....

SIX years in England and Wales - we are so much more generous to those hard done by multi national corporations

OffTheBackAdam

Now, if you'd overpaid them & it was their error, would you be saying "Nah, keep it"?
One would have thought you'd be reading what your bill's had on them.

beancounter

OffTheBackAdam wrote:

Now, if you'd overpaid them & it was their error, would you be saying "Nah, keep it"?
One would have thought you'd be reading what your bill's had on them.

I did / do.

What I said was, THEY finally realised THEIR mistake.

To the others - thanks for the pointers.

bc

Gazzaputt

I had kind of the same and went to the Energy Ombudsman.

I had been telling my energy company for years they had been misreading my meter.

Anyway they tried to get me to pay back over £1000 that had built because of their error.

Energy Ombudsman ruled in my favor as the energy company hadn't kept to their own customer charter and the charges were over 2 years old.

£800 of the bill written off and I got compensation!

Weejie54

Perhaps you should study the ERA Code of Practice for Accurate Bills:

One source is here:

http://www.britishgas.co.uk/pdf/BackBil ... rFocus.pdf

Assuming that you are talking about a domestic supply, it seems that energy retailers should only back-bill you for 12 months (was 2 years as previous poster mentioned).

Note, in particular:

Inaccurate bills
This would include circumstances where a supplier has failed to set up or maintain accurate metering data, or where a supplier has ignored factual
readings* and has continued to bill based on estimated or inaccurate readings without investigation.
Subject to the exclusions below, scenarios where back billing clause may apply include:

Where a customer has provided correct readings but a supplier has rejected them, without investigation as invalid e.g. the customer or the
meter reader has provided correct 5 dial readings* but the supplier believes the meter to be 4 dial and ignores without further investigation.
Meter readings or meter details are transposed on billing system, e.g. night reads recorded as day readings and vice versa and the supplier had
opportunity to recognise but did not investigate further.
Where meter details are crossed and the supplier had opportunity to recognise but did not investigate further.
Where meter details have not been updated following an exchange.

Perhaps it would be an idea to contact the Energy Ombudsman.

http://www.energy-ombudsman.org.uk/

beancounter

Weejie54 - very helpful document, many thanks.

Before involving the ombudsman I need to try to resolve the issue with the supplier - but I was looking for guidance on where I stood first.

Many thanks

bc

cee

Crapaud wrote:

cee wrote:

...statute of limitations ...

Sounds suspiciously American. Do we have such a thing here?

As said...we have the Limitations act...which is a set of Statutes of Limitation...so yes...whether lawyers and legal beagles use that exact term? who knows...however it is a widely accepted term in the business community....

and spen...ah..yes of course...forgot about englandshire being a bit different...

dilemna

cee wrote:

Crapaud wrote:

cee wrote:

...statute of limitations ...

Sounds suspiciously American. Do we have such a thing here?

As said...we have the Limitations act...which is a set of Statutes of Limitation...so yes...whether lawyers and legal beagles use that exact term? who knows...however it is a widely accepted term in the business community....

and spen...ah..yes of course...forgot about englandshire being a bit different...

And of course Scottish Law may be different to the Law of England and Wales.

Re disputed energy bills I believe that the regulator has declared that energy companies can only go back 12 months recovering monies owed. Whether this is the same for consumers I don't know, possibility it is not, may be consumers can recover monies further back in time where they have been over charged.

beancounter

Well many thanks to everyone for the advice, especially the link to the Energy Retail Association, as after a polite but well-informed challenge to the utility company they've cancelled the whole bill.

I would have been prepared to be back-billed a year but they're not even charging me that.

The bill by the way was £670 so although I'm no better off than I was a week ago, I feel like I am....

Thanks again

bc

Headhuunter

I had some shenanigans with my electricity. A couple of years ago EDF decided that when the Victorian building I live in was converted in 1997, the meters were wrongly labelled and I had been paying the upstairs flat's bills and vice versa. After some discussion they refunded me several hundred quid and rebilled me for a year or something. I made a healthy profit! However every now and then they refer the unpaid part of the bill to a debt collection agency even though they haven't got a hope of getting the money as I didn't even live in the flat for most of the time they keep trying to get the debt agency to collect for....

spen666

my power company sent me a bill for gas 10 times higher than my largest ever bill. They claimed it was an actual reading.

However, meter is inside house & not accessible from outside. I am only person with keys & I was working away from home & with a High Court Judge when they claimed meter was read.

I agreed to pay bill, once they had paid me compensation for tresspass and provided me with details of meter reader so I could report him to police for breaking and entering. Funnily enough they decided to cancel the bill

spen666

my power company sent me a bill for gas 10 times higher than my largest ever bill. They claimed it was an actual reading.

However, meter is inside house & not accessible from outside. I am only person with keys & I was working away from home & with a High Court Judge when they claimed meter was read.

I agreed to pay bill, once they had paid me compensation for tresspass and provided me with details of meter reader so I could report him to police for breaking and entering. Funnily enough they decided to cancel the bill